What Could Have Been
by Tigeress419
Summary: There is what has been and what could have been. A mysterious being visits Angel and sees how things would have been if he had never lost his soul to Buffy. He went away from his love to save the world, but hell came anyway.
1. Prologue

            A/N: This is a part Angel reality story as seen in the prologue but it's mostly AU. If you're not familiar with the Buffy episode "Surprise" doesn't worry I'll give a brief explanation in the next chapter. Please review even just to tell me that you read it!

At certain points in life we come to a fork in the road and we must choose which path to travel. Sometimes we just can't help but wonder how things would have been if we had chosen the other path. The longer you live the more forks you come too, the more regret you hold within your heart.

            He lies awake at night sometimes, thinking if he had done something different would the results have been any better. This particular night he was wondering what would have happened if had gotten out of Sunnydale with the Judge's arm, if he had never slept with Buffy, never lost his soul in a moment of true happiness. That is where I came in.

            "Who are you?" he asked propping himself with his elbows up from his bed.

            I glanced at my image in the specially tinted glass. I'm barely visible in the reflection, ghost-like. My pale hand pulled a silvery-gray strand of hair away from my fiery red eyes. His subconscious had picked the form I would appear to him as. It's a Banshee or at least very much like one. Why couldn't he have picked something nicer, like a fairy or a nymph or a normal human? But no, he picked the announcer of death. It must have been the little bit of Irish mysticism left in him.

            "Who are you?" he repeated louder, getting out of his fancy bed in his fancy penthouse. All he was wearing were boxers, showing off what I have to say, was a very impressive body.

            Don't drool, I thought. After more than two hundred years he still gave me that butterfly feeling, and now he was no longer that obnoxious pub hound I knew.  Then again, back then he had been so full of life, mostly drunken, but life nonetheless. Now he seemed to brood a lot. I forced myself to focus at my task.

            "I'm here to show you what has been-"I began my signature explanatory speech but he cut me off.

            "So you're what, the Ghost of Christmas Past," he remarked, clearly angry and annoyed.

            "No, more like the Ghost of Christmas What-If," I smiled, "And not just Christmas but of particular events in one's life. I'm here to show what has been and what _could_ have been."

            "And what event are you talking about?"

            "The one you were just thinking about,"

            He looked a bit shocked, "How?"

            "I know these things; the Powers That Be give me certain knowledge."

            He was quiet for a moment, "So then you know all the aspects of it, all he consequences?"

             I paused, I didn't know. So I peeked my head through the fabric, well for me it's more like a curtain, of time and saw what could have been.          


	2. Good Bye

            Her blonde hair shone in the moonlight, he would miss that. He would miss the way her lips would quiver right before she said some of her simple but astonishing wisdom. He would miss the way her eyes-

            He stopped himself. Thinking about all of the things about her he'd miss would only make this harder, "this" meaning leaving town in order to hide the Judge's arm from Drusilla and Spike. He was the only one who could stop them from reconstructing a creature that would kill all those with humanity in their blood.

            "It's better I go alone from here on," he said, letting go of her hand.

            Soon she was crying and that tore him up inside. He gave her the Claddagh Ring, her birthday gift. It was sickenly ironic that he was leaving on her birthday that he was leaving her for some undetermined amount of time. They held each other and kissed. They parted for a moment, then she leaned in for one last kiss but he pulled away, knowing that if he kept kissing her he'd never be able to bring himself to leave. This is where what has been splits into what could have been.

            "Good-bye," he whispered, turning away. He continued walking, choking back the tears.

            As he reached the ship's entrance he felt that it seemed that he had been cold to her, like he didn't care. That was far from the truth, he knew it and she knew it. Still he wanted to make sure she knew how he felt. He turned around to take one last look at her and say one last thing.

            "Buffy, I-I…." he stuttered but then trailed off seeing that she was gone. She had run once he had turned away from her. Farther inland, she was attacked by some of Spike's minions. She took them out easily, partly because of all the wooden crates surrounding her, but mostly because she vented all her fury on the situation out on them, and the little bit of anger she had for him, for not giving her one last kiss.

            She would wait for him for weeks, which turned into months. Those months turned into years, and by then she would give up all hope.

Next time: We find out where Angel has been. Now be a nice and click the little blue "Submit Review" button at the bottom of your screen and tell me what you think!


	3. Around the World

            Two years, five months, and eleven days, that's how long he'd been gone. He kept count in his head perhaps each day he was away from her it made his ache. He mentally recounted his travels as he rode on a truck he had jumped on at the last minute.

            That cargo ship he left on was heading to Hong Kong but it thankfully stopped in Hawaii. In the rush to get out of Sunnydale he hadn't brought any blood with him, so he had to resort to eating rats. Once in Honolulu he went to the local butcher shop and got plenty of pig's blood. The man at the counter didn't even blink an eye at the order. He supposed it was a local thing; maybe it was used in a cultural ceremony.

            Then he snuck onto another ship to Asia. Weeks later on his way to remote part of Mongolia he thought he figured out he was being followed by some of Spike's men. No matter where he hid the Judge's arm, he knew that the flunkies would find it quickly since they were on his heels. This was a problem but he knew a solution.

            "Make three decoys of this," he ordered a Taiwan shopkeeper of the mystical persuasion, slamming the box which contained the horrible limb. Not only did the frightening shopkeeper create prefect copies of the crate with painstaking detail but believable wax imitations of the arm itself. 

            So his task changed, from hiding one item to four. He hoped that the henchmen would find a decoy and take it all the way to California before realizing it was a fake. 

            Decoy number one he hid in the spot he had originally picked, an uninhabited part of the Gobi Desert. He heard of an old trading post from centuries ago that was now a home to all things not wanting to be found. The temperature at night would have killed any human without the proper clothing but he was already dead. The only problem he had was the Sun, he would have to calculate when to stay under a ruin or continue moving. He walked for days along the path which was once part of the Silk Road. 

Finally he arrived to the long forgotten landmark and was greeted by a particular strange woman. She looked like a local but was dressed in fabric that he had never seen, probably because they as well as the woman were around when the Silk Road was being used. She didn't speak but she seemed to know what needed to be done. She took the crate from his hands and elegantly walked, or more like glided to a wooden door that led to the underground level. He followed her down the labyrinth, passed empty shelves. She finally stopped and kneeled on the dirt floor. Her hands stretched forward, the crate still in them, and they seemed to past through a mystical field, since the box and part of her arms became invisible. From her movements he gathered that she was laying the box down on the ledge, and her empty hands came back out. He figured that all the other ledges were filled, he just couldn't see that they were.

Once he returned to the nearest, large town he hoped on several cargo trains in order to arrive in Italy. It took nearly two months, considering it was nearly 20,000 miles from Mongolia and also in Rostov na Donu, a Russian city nearly the Sea of Azov he was accidentally mistaken for a local rock star. His Italian was rough but he still remembered some. It was odd that a vampire, creature of the night, would be in the city of all things holy. Because of this he knew that there was no way he could possible get help…or at least in person anyway. Like an unwanted newborn, he left the second decoy with a note at the door of a monsterary know for its "older" beliefs. He watched from the safe distance as a monk discovered the unusual package and read the paper. Through the thin, tall window he saw the monk follow his instruction by placing the decoy deep in a well-like structure full of holy water.

The next decoy took him to Amassalik, Greenland. On the frozen land was located the home of an ancient order of witches, descended from the Vikings who settled there. Getting an audience with them was difficult because they instantly knew that he was a vampire. He was nearly staked on many occasions. He was about to leave to go to the Falkland Islands when one of the young apprentices remembered that it was him that was cursed with a soul. That's to the young girl he was able to give the decoy to the witches. He wasn't allowed to see what they did with it but he trusted them that they would take it seriously, even though it was a decoy. He conveniently left that out in his explanation of his situation.

His next destination was the complete opposite of Greenland, the heart of the Amazon. This is where the resting spot of the true Judge's arm would be. Through locals and snitches he managed to learn of a tribe with powerful protection magic. Through a translator he talked with the chief of the tribe about what he needed them to do. After discussing with other elder the Chief came up with an ingenious spell. The arm would be placed behind a tick bark door of the hollow trunk of a scared tree and a charm was put on it so that it could be opened by an innocent child.

The tribe swore there allegiance at the ceremony where the spell was cast to give their lives in order to stop anyone trying to reconstruct the Judge. Even some the nearby animal seemed to agree to protect the crate. And at that he made his way to Mexico on the truck heading to San Diego. One thing he didn't count on way the truck being search.

"U.S Immigration, please step out of the vehicle!" a voice took him out of his thoughts.

"What's your name?" another federal employee asked.

He remained still but quickly, sitmostantely knocked out the three men.

"Angel," he answered.

A/N: Thank you all those who have reviewed  and sorry that this chapter was so short and boring (a lot of explaining). Next chapter, Angel has to get a fake passport from an "Angel" character we all love (hint: his specialty is off-track betting). After that we finally get to the City of Angels!


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